The bridge over the Public Garden Pond is said to be the smallest
suspension bridge in the world.

*

In
the days of "King Philip's War," a network of beacon signals
was set up as warning of Indian raids. Bonfire material was set on
convenient hilltops, and the fires, flashing from town to town, gave
warning, The central bonfire pile of this system was in Boston, near the
present location of the Bowdoin St. entrance of the State House.

It
was from this that the hill acquired its name of Beacon Hill, while the
road leading to the beacon pile was named Beacon Street.

*

The part of the Cambridge river front where the M. I. T.
now stands, was not filled in till about the turn of the century, and,
as late as 1912, it was still broad marsh. Only Massachusetts Avenue
crossed the marshes, and over that one road led a volume of traffic
between Boston and Cambridge, which was spared the view of the marshes
by a long road of billboards on each side of the road.

One
billboard, apparently erected by a real-estate owner of those parts,
attracted considerable attention for the ten years or so that it was
standing. It was a pink billboard, reading: "Voici le centre du
monde. $100 reward for proof to the contrary."

The
translation of the French is: "Here is the center of the
world." And there seems to be no record of anyone claiming the
reward.

*

Streamlined automobiles are not a recent invention―at least
in Boston. In 1911, an auto advertising thermos bottles was seen driving over
Harvard Bridge. It was the exact shape of a thermos bottle, with the driver
riding the neck of the bottle.

*

In 1893, when the proposition came up to build a
subway under Tremont Street (partly to give work to the unemployed,
for 1893 was a depression year), there were many objections to this
totally untried idea of cellars for street cars. One was that the air
was likely to become stagnant, and that the heavy impurities would
collect down there underground.

So they were required to install an extensive
ventilation system, capable of changing the air every quarter hour.
And so, Boston has the only air-conditioned subway system in the world―air conditioning
was put in operation in 1897.

It was soon found that this ventilation
system not only kept the air fresh, and kept the subway warm in winter
and cool in summer (contrast New York's hot and stuffy Interborough),
but kept the place cleaner than expected. It appears that work was, as
a result, done to build the type of electric fan used there into some
kind of dust-remover. The result was one of the earliest models of
vacuum cleaners.

*

The Harvard Stadium is not in Cambridge, but in the
Boston city limits.

Boston College is not in Boston, but in Newton.

Tufts College is in two cities
(Somerville and Medford) at once. The city line runs through the
college yard.

*

The "snow train" idea
started in Boston. It was originally a device of the Boston &
Maine Railroad to boost business, after much of the railroad system
had been wrecked in the 1927 floods. So, in the winter of 1928, after
North Station had been rebuilt, one train was run out of North Station
each Sunday as an excursion to some winter sports center.

In the following winters,
arrangements were made with the New Haven Railroad to run similar
excursions from points in Southern New England; and, in 1931, the
service was extended to New York City. Since then it has become almost
a national institution; but it started in Boston.

*

The stone building atop
Prospect Hill in Somerville is said to have been once, in colonial
days, a flour mill. The miller once caught his daughter eloping with a
young man he disapproved of, and was unable to prevent them from
getting away; so he took out his temper in profanity. The story goes
that sometimes, at night, the miller's spirit revisits the scene, and
is still swearing so hard that blue flashes are seen coming out of the
building.

In 1775, the rebel forces,
pushed back from Bunker Hill, fortified this building, which remained
the rebel outpost till the British were driven out of Boston. It was
on this fort that a 13-striped flag first flew.